Impact US-China Trade War on Malaysia

About the Seminar

The trade conflict between the US and China has the potential to affect Malaysia’s trade with both countries as both are important trading partners. The imposition of safeguard tariffs by the US will affect Malaysia’s solar exports to the US. The immediate impact from 2017 to 2018 shows that gross and domestic exports to the US have fallen but re-exports have increased. The tariffs imposed on China raises the possibility of trade and investment diversion to Malaysia. In 2018, re-exports play an important role in Malaysia’s export adjustments to the US and China from 2017 to 2018. The possibility of investment diversion from China is high given the growing presence of China’s investment in Malaysia since the announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Malaysia, however, will face stiff competition from the region for the relocation of MNC investment from China, especially in the e&e sub-sector.

About the Speaker

Tham Siew Yean is Senior Fellow at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. She was formerly Director and Professor of International Trade at Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Her research interests cover trade in goods and services as well as foreign direct investment (FDI), including BRI projects from China in Malaysia. She has served as a consultant with national agencies such as Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) Malaysia, and international agencies such as World Bank, World Bank Institute, Asian Development Bank and Asian Development Bank Institute. She has published extensively on trade-related issues in books and journals such as Journal of Contemporary Asia, Emerging Markets, Finance and Trade, Asian Economic Panel and Prague Economic Papers, besides co-editing several books published by international publishing houses.

Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents3@iseas.edu.sg by 8 July 2019.